Johan Higuita

Backend Engineer
freeAppticket (2024 – Present)

Independent (Contract)

• Designed and built REST APIs and backend services with Node.js and TypeScript for small business and startup clients, focusing on data integrity, maintainability, and deployment readiness.
• Built a comedy events platform supporting event discovery, membership management, ticket reservations, and benefit redemption for live shows.
• Implemented MongoDB data models, API endpoints, authentication flows, and deployment workflows using AWS and Docker.
• Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, AWS, MongoDB, Docker, Kubernetes

Tech Lead
Talent.com (2021 - 2024)

• Led a backend team of 4–5 engineers responsible for core data pipelines, ensuring data integrity, consistency, and availability.
• Designed and proposed system-level solutions to resolve performance bottlenecks and improve data processing workflows.
• Improved system observability by defining monitoring and alerting strategies, increasing reliability and early issue detection.
• Collaborated with infrastructure, security, DevOps, and business stakeholders to align backend solutions with operational needs.
• Managed and prioritized technical debt, balancing short-term delivery with long-term maintainability.
• Conducted code reviews, defined backend standards, and mentored engineers through technical guidance and knowledge sharing.
• Technologies: Python, Node, PHP, RabbitMQ, PM2, Elasticsearch

Sr Backend Developer
Talent.com (2019 - 2021)

• Designed and built a backend data ingestion system using Node to extract and aggregate data from over 50,000 websites, as well as static sources such as JSON and XML.
• Implemented a distributed data processing pipeline using PHP, Python and a message broker to filter, process, and classify large volumes of extracted data, improving throughput and system performance.
• Ensured data integrity and consistency in Elasticsearch by implementing automated validation processes and scheduled background jobs.
• Built internal backend-driven tools to support QA and internal teams, enabling better tracking and visibility of incoming requests and system usage.
• Developed internal monitoring and alerting tools to track server health, request rates, and processing times, improving system reliability and incident detection.
• Technologies: PHP, Node, MySQL

Programming Instructor
Pygmalion (2016 - 2018)

• Taught programming fundamentals using Arduino (C/C++), sensors and actuators.
• Designed hands-on projects to introduce control flow, hardware abstraction, and debugging.
• Mentored students in problem-solving and logical thinking.
• Adapted technical concepts for non-technical audiences.